Dannage (Albright Lothian)
Basics In Game Name: Dannage Character Name: Albright Lothian, Nickname 'Dannage' Character Race: Human Character Age: 39 Gender: Male Description Stocky, 5ft 8, Broad chested but not 'musclebound'. Messy short dark hair and a thin beard. Faded laughter lines around the face, hazel eyes. Lopsided smile and an animated way of talking once he gets to know you. History I can’t say as I really remember the crash. I hit my head, everything remains a bit blurry. I had been selected by my school to represent us in the new space programme initiative. I had written a paper on space colonisation and they had selected me and some dozen or so other kids, to go on a space tour of a nearby moon. I don’t even remember what it was called. I guess I should look it up some time, maybe go back there… See the site again. Maybe. We were all in some new experimental colony shuttle, zooming over a long archipelago when something went wrong. Who knows what, but the ship came apart. They say it broke up at near supersonic speed. How I didn’t die, who knows, but I woke up on a beach, on my own. I think I walked a day or so along the beach before I was lucky enough to find a few bits of the ship, including a few food packs. Pretty sure I would have died otherwise. They tell me a search party had recovered some parts of the ship a week or two later, but that some pieces and some bodies had never been found, presumed lost to the sea. They thought I’d been killed. I don’t know if they did or not. It must have been months before I heard an engine noise. In those first quiet weeks, I had found a few more bits of wreckage, at opposite ends of the island chain I was stuck on. I learned to survive, stretching the food packs out, hunting fish and small rodents on my islands. I lived in a cave for a while, then eventually built a little hut. I realised a few months in, that I was forgetting how to talk and how to spell things, so I started writing things, using what I could find. I wrote numbers from one to one hundred, and the alphabet, and every morning I woke up, took a letter and then said as many words as I could that started with that letter, counting along the numbers as I went. I don’t think I ever got to 100. I had managed to construct quite the little habitation, just like I had explained space colonists would do. I had a weatherproof shelter, I had dug some inlets for the sea water, with gates so I could catch fish in my little canals. I farmed them carefully, making sure I kept stocks abundant. I used condensation under plastic sheeting to desalinate water. I made tools and cleared some ground, and planted some seeds. I was happily self sufficient and had forgotten about any other people. I don’t know how long it was before the engine noises became a bit more regular. Certainly years… I remembered that the moon was due to be colonised some years after my trip and figured out that it had been populated, and now people were flying overheard every few days. I decided to build a beacon pyre, along with spelling the word HELP on a beach. I wasn’t really paying attention to dates but it was probably two or three weeks, before a shuttle touched down near my homestead. It was so emotional to see another human being after what I’m told was almost 10 years. The ship came from a corporation called Trace Industries. They took me back to their local station. I spent some time with them, but after being alone for so long, I had trouble spending time with so many people. They seemed so loud, and I couldn’t really talk with them. They were kind though, and I knew they were trying to help. They eventually sent me to another planet. I remember watching the moon in the viewport of the ship as we left orbit, trying to find my islands. I was taken to another planet, with a lot of cold, grey buildings, and so many lights at night it blocked out the stars. A kind old man and a nice middle aged woman would spend time with me every day, asking me questions, giving me toys or puzzles, and e-books to read. They also gave me kits to build. I loved building. Different people came to visit over the first few months, apparently people who had lost family in the crash and were trying to find if I was their boy. Nobody ever ‘claimed’ me. I never really thought about family anyway. I didn’t remember much beyond a stern looking bald man who had been angry a lot. I don’t know how long I spent in there, but that was a few years too. The man eventually went away, don’t know if he retired or died, but I had learned now to cope with noise and lights and people. They always liked me to build things and they asked me what I wanted to do now I could interact with people, and I said I wanted to go into space and build a farm on a distant planet, and a space ship which I could fly around the stars in. When they let me go, I tried to find Trace Industries, but nobody had heard of them and I was beginning to wonder if everyone I met or knew always disappeared, or whether I was imagining people. Eventually, I applied for a scholarship at a small shipwrights academy, funded by SMITH industries. I spent six years turning my rudimentary survival skills into quantum physics, astronomy and fusion engine propulsion skills. A man from SMITH would visit every six months, to see how I was doing. When I graduated, they said I wasn’t contracted to them, but if I wanted a job, I would be welcomed. They seemed nice. I said I’d think about it, but I really wanted to get out of the simulation booths and into space for real. I packed all my belongings into a holdall and finally, I was ready. Ragnarok Timeline Year 1 Launched expedition from Port Vittar, ship destroyed and pilot killed. Dannage thrown clear of blast in a flight suit and spent three weeks in intensive medical care. Ferried by members of SMITH industries to their territory, where he continued medical recovery and used the last of his money to purchase SS Eleanor, a tiny personal shuttle. Began construction of SS Valerie. ''Construction set back due to insufficient thrust to mass ratio to avoid the heliosphere of Port Vittar's main star, causing damage to ship and systems. When local resources proved insufficient and the ''SS Valerie has sufficient shielding to withstand pirate swarm missiles, launched to a clear sector and established Lothian Star Farms, eventually settling on a space station, rather than settling on a planet, as intended. This was due to the proximity of raider bases to the planet. As work on the SS Valerie ''reached phase 2 (Armour skinning) Dannage made the long flight back to Port Vittar again, in order to hire mercenaries to assist clearing raider stations from his sector of space. A faiing in proximity sensors and the navigation beacons led to further crippling damage from the star. The ''Valerie lay lifeless in space for a few hours, before hobbling back to Stallion Gate, in order to reach SMITH industries space, whereupon Drake Constantine towed what was left of the ship back to the space station. Whilst the Valerie ''underwent repairs, Dannage purchased a Venture Class Frigate. Renaming the ship, the ''LSF StarSpite, and offering jobs to the two crew. One accepted the offer and joined as the second colony member. Dannage set about reverse engineering many of the Frigate's systems and design and finished with the NeedleTail escort Corvette. He also registered his store onto the galactic trade network, after conducting two significant trade deals. Current State Whilst the Valerie is spaceworthy again, her internal systems were gutted by fire caused due to the Star incident, and the ship remains docked at Chemise, expecting to be internally refurbished. In the meantime, however, focus has been on a new section of Chemise Station. With the recent upgrades to the factory systems on the station, it has been accepted that the station will need to serve as home for several crew members, should the intention be to launch anything more than just the one escort ship. A Barracks is currently commissioned, alongside docking for up to eight additional ships. Construction is underway.